April 5, 2012

... and is now annoyed that — after she tweeted about her encounter with the cinematic dreamboat — people are going on about his being such a hero, thus casting her in the retrograde role of damsel in distress.

[A]s a feminist, a writer, and a gentlewoman of fortune, I refuse to be cast in any sort of boring supporting female role, even though I have occasional trouble crossing the road, and even though I did swoon the teeniest tiniest bit when I realized it was him. I think that's lazy storytelling, and I'm sure Ryan Gosling would agree with me.

Why did the feminist cross the road? To swoon into the arms of a movie star, tweet about it, inspire intense envy, and then to hit those already slammed by envy a second time with the news that they are antifeminist for seeing her as a damsel in distress when she was really thinking deep thoughts about feminism.

Really, that article does nothing to improve my impression of feminism, at least how the writer casts it. She's a ditzy chick, always losing her keys and not watching for traffic. Seems an independent type woman would be able to take care of herself.

She was thinking about what she might pick up that would make the dinner extra special, the one she is planning for her hubby sweetcakes when he comes home. He works so hard and deserves the best. She knows he like Rice Krispies and she knows he also really really really likes pork chops so she was thinking about that, putting Rice Krispies with pork chops.

Laurie Penny is lucky that many around her are aware of their surroundings and have the decency to protect her from her own carelessness. Not-so-lucky is any other absent minded person who might need to depend on Ms. Laurie Penny. They will get flattened by a truck while Laurie daydreams about important stuff.

I just want to say that I am confident enough in my own feminism to be willing to swoon and blushingly express sincere gratitude should Mr. Gosling--or any man, really--wish to save me from becomin at one with the pavement. OK, I might blush MORE if it IS Mr. Gosling, or even a vague lookalike, but my basic statement stands.

Laurie Penny, I hereby cast you in the role of boring female supporting character. In your script you’ll see it as “Damsel in distress”. Not many lines, sorry. And those you do have are trite and inconsequential to the plot, sorry again. There. Done. Now what are you going to do about? Actually, it was very easy. You’re not being cast against type, if you know what I mean.

And I see that you describe yourself as a “gentlewoman of fortune”. I can’t say what notion you connect with that string of words in your pretty little head, but a gentleman of fortune is not something a gentleman ought to aspire to. Such men are usually thieves, cutthroats and vagabonds. A few characters from classic fiction have been called themselves such, and most of them were dirty, lazy, drunken wharf rats like Israel Hands and George Merry. Is that who you had in mind?

Well she did thank the guy and says nice things about him. And she does have a good point that celebrity worship has risen to an insane level. She's ostensibly addressing people who think actors and musicians are per se interesting and live for the "stars: they're just like us" section of Dumbshit Magazine. OTOH, her third or fourth generation femnism seems to compel her to presume stupid things, like that the rest of us care about how she is perceived. So there's that.

Funny, I came across the name Laurie Penny just a short while ago here, where there's lots of good stuff by her, like this: "It has to be war… The cracks in capitalism are getting wider, and if we are smart enough and brave enough we can force those cracks open until the whole thing shakes. We are the new left: precarious, rootless, ruthless, entitled, digitally enabled, and we are beginning to set the agenda…. The narrative of class transcendence held up to the superstructure of free-market ideology. Now that narrative is collapsing, threatening to bring the whole thing crashing down. So let it come down. There is more than enough room for us to build new lives in the rubble."

The blogger, David Thompson, says: "I’m guessing Laurie’s on the upswing of her manic-depressive cycle." Ha, ha, and maybe something to keep in mind while reading her.

The irony is by displacing attention from the preservation of her life, she is denigrating her own dignity. By downplaying the altruistic (i.e. voluntary) act of another human begin, she is also denigrating his dignity.

I suppose there are some people in this world who cannot help but be offended. If they could, they would either have a world unto themselves, or rule over individuals deemed less worthy than themselves.

She needs to step back and respect individual dignity, hers and others.

"We are the new left: precarious, rootless, ruthless, entitled, digitally enabled, and we are beginning to set the agenda…. "

Okay, fuck it, she's an idiot. The only "agenda" she's ever set or ever will set was the agenda at an Occupy meeting and it was probably down-twinkled by 78 percent of the attendees. "The new left" my aunt fanny. How many "new lefts" do we have to put up with? How many "new lefts" does it take to cobble together an ideology that doesn't ultimately look exactly like the old left? Still counting? This silly superficial self-involved twit has no real world experience or wisdom to speak of and is simply repeating notions that she learned, probably very recently, in college. Notions that were old and tired in 1979 and are on a respirator now. Pull the plug.

“Whenever I see a feminist lady slip and fall while crossing the street, my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me. Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny.”

Man opens door for woman. Woman tweets about it. People respond with applause that chivalry is still alive. Woman gets annoyed that a man gets complemented, so declares she could have opened the door her own damn self!

Go back in PennyRed's Twitter feed to read her excruciatingly funny effusions of passion back when OWS was at its height; gosh. She flew to NYC three times? more often? to be part of History... managed to get arrested once, I think.

Ok, lets see if that thing with stepping in front of a moving car suddenly becoming super weird feminine when she is saved by a movie star works.. (on a feminist perspective mind you).. As opposed to now Supreme Kagan.. who not only once but "a couple of times when she was so focused on her work, she would park her car and leave it running overnight. She just forgot to turn it off."

Saved by Movie Star because she was immersed in deep thought.. or leave car running overnight because she was immersed in deep thought?

My first thought was, "Who is Ryan Gosling? Wasn't he that guy on the reality show who was married to the woman with multiple babies who dumped him for having an affair?" Then I checked IMDB. Not that guy, but I still don't recognize the man. Have to say, he is very good looking, though. And he must not be as self-absorbed as one often assumes actors to be since he was aware enough to save a stranger from a car on a crowded street. Heck, I would probably be too self-absorbed to notice anything like that in time to act.

Laurie Penny is, in no particular order: a journalist, an author, a feminist, a Londoner, a reprobate, an activist, a hedonist, a drinker of too much tea, a believer in the ultimate goodness of human beings, twenty-five years old, and a reformed smoker.

So, a true feminist tells the world how she was saved by a man and then is pissed off that the world approves of a man saving her ? Meanwhile, the dude who did the good deed says nothing, but continues to act like a decent person willing to help out strangers (he broke up a fight last year). Modern feminism cares not for humans caring for other humans on an equal basis, looking out for those in need of help, it cares only for feelings of feminine superiority!

I had to Google Ryan Gosling. I was dragged to The Notebook like every other man that saw it, but I have no recollection of him. The movie was horrible, with lots of sad poignant moments that women seem to love in their movies. There was not one explosion or gun fight, so I suspect it wasn't directed by Michael Bey. It did have Rockford, but his dad Rocky was missing. Beyond that I have never seen the mans "work".

But that doubles the amount I have seen from this self described feminist.

How ironic that when a feminist dusts off her sense of humor and brings it out in public, no one sees it.

Churchill was badly injured in the 20's crossing a NYC street because he looked the wrong way.

The real heroes I've met in America are risking everything to make sure that the United States doesn't slide further into bigotry, inequality and violence Not sure to whom she's referring--the police? Prison guards?

This seems to be done, but PennyRed is one of my favorite online amusements so I'll add this from Damian Thompson's Saturday column in the Telegraph.

"It has the makings of such a sweet story: Ryan Gosling, Hollywood heartthrob, grabs a young British woman just as she’s about to be run over in New York. But there’s a twist: the girl went online to scold Americans for being celebrity-obsessed and to reveal that she looked the wrong way because she was thinking about “the importance of reproductive freedom to women’s rights”. America, meet Laurie Penny, described by New York magazine as “one of those Leftie-types who are so sanctimonious they make you want to vote Republican out of sheer spite”. True, but her teenage priggishness is a source of great merriment to many of her readers. Thank you, Ryan, for preserving a national treasure."